DP20210 Equality for Granted: What Happens when Discrimination in Academia Becomes Salient?

We document the individual, organizational, and field-wide impacts following a public disclosure of substantial male bias in the competence assessments of newly minted PhDs applying for an important individual grant from the Swedish NIH. Post-disclosure, three key changes occurred: (i) a rapid phase-out of male-only review committees, (ii) adjustments in the decision-making processes of reviewers, and (iii) an elimination of the average male bias. We follow applicants’ publications, promotions, and earnings up to 18 years after application. We document an increase in the allocative efficiency of the research grants: the long-run research output of grantees assigned to review committees with an average pre-disclosure bias increased by 27 percent of a standard deviation compared to those assigned to unbiased committees. The disclosure of bias prompted coordinated actions with broader downstream academic and societal impact: female enrollment in biomedical PhD programs increased by 10 percentage points relative to other fields – in turn increasing female health focused research by 20 percent, without crowding out attention to men’s health.

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